Canadian Lacrosse League to launch with two local teams

Oshawa and Durham to play at GM Centre in inaugural season

Canadian Lacrosse League to launch with two local teams

Sabrina Byrnes / Metroland file

OSHAWA -- Paul St. John, commissioner of the Canadian Lacrosse League, addressed guests during a press conference at the General Motors Centre in May. The league announced this week it will begin its season on January 7. Two of the leagues team, Oshawa and Durham, will play out of the GM Centre. October 2011

SIDEBAR

CLax launches team name and logo contest

DURHAM -- The Canadian Lacrosse League wants to get the community involved when it comes to the naming process of its franchises.

Paul St. John, the league commissioner, would like fans to submit their choices for nicknames and logos for the Oshawa and Durham organizations that will play out of the General Motors Centre.

"The winner will get season's tickets to both teams, because they are going to play doubleheaders," said St. John. "They'll get a team replica jersey with that, and I believe that will be autographed. Whoever wins for Oshawa will get the Oshawa team autographed and whoever wins the Durham with get a Durham team's autographed."

DURHAM -- While the structure of the league is quite different than originally intended, it appears the Canadian Lacrosse League, or CLax as it has been branded, will be a go.

League commissioner Paul St. John made the announcement this week that plans are firmly in place to launch the six-team league on Jan. 7, 2012 with a triple-header played at Iroquois Lacrosse Arena in Oshweken.

Oshweken, the only remaining team from the original three announced back in May -- both Peterborough and Montreal pulled out -- will join Iroquois, Brampton, Peel, Oshawa and Durham in the inaugural season.

The blueprint is far from the original that St. John had in mind some five months ago when word first dropped about the league, but he is confident as things move forward that the league will be a success.

"We've got to the bottom of the mountain now. Getting the league together and getting the teams together, that was the hilly road to get to the bottom," St. John said of uncertainty surrounding the league in the last few months. "Now we've got to climb that mountain. We've got to get fans, sponsors, ticket sales. There is so much more to do and it's exciting. I am looking forward to getting out and talking to people, telling them about our brand."

The original concept was to have teams in both western and eastern Canada, but those plans didn't work out. From there, CLax was going to spend year one with a team in Quebec and a handful in Ontario.

And up until a couple of weeks ago, that still looked to be a possibility. However, Montreal pulled the plug on its operations for 2012, leaving the league with just Brampton, Oshawa and Oshweken, and St. John wondering if the league could get off the ground.

For a brief time the idea of running a three-team league was discussed, but he and deputy commissioner Jim Veltman thought better of it and came up with the idea of putting two teams in each venue occupied by the existing teams. That led to the birth of the Iroquois, Peel and Durham organizations.

"What we decided was we're going to have venues that we get at nine o'clock in the morning and we're going to have it until 11 o'clock at night, so how do we utilize that?" St. John explains. "Our goal all along was to start a pro league and allow more players to play in it and give them an opportunity to play winter ball and make a little bit of money ... Jim and I came up with the idea of lets put two teams in a venue. We talked to the Oshweken group and they were all for it."

Rodney Hill will operate both Oshweken and Iroquois during the 14-game regular season, while St. John said the league will assume ownership over the other four clubs.

While far from an ideal situation, doing so was a necessary step, according to St. John.

"Our goal is to start selling off franchises as soon as possible, whether it's this year or whether it's in the offseason, between seasons next year. We want to sell the franchises. The league doesn't want to own them for a long time, but to get the league started we felt this was the best fit," he said.

The Oshawa and Durham franchises will play out of the GM Centre. St. John said Steve Toll will serve as director of lacrosse operations for both teams, while a coach and general manager for each will likely be announced prior to a player combine in Oshweken on Oct. 29.